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>> cenk: in the last segment rocky -- that's why you can visit tyt. "viewpoint" is next. john fuglesang senate republicans used a filibuster to block a vote on former senator chuck hagel for defense

secretary. congratulations, harry reid, you built this. barack obama killed osama bin laden so republicans are killing the post office. thom hartmann joins us on that. republicans are still fighting each other. it is like a civil war with the south fighting the south. and eliot spitzer is with us tonight which is historic because you know conan's not going on jay. today is the birthday of carl bernstein, florence henderson is 79. also the birthday of keller and somewhere, somehow jimmy hoffa is celebrating his 100th birthday. we celebrate valentine's day to publicly demonstrate your affection with crap. this is "viewpoint." >> john: good evening, i'm john fuglesang.

coming up, another state moves a big step closer to approving american equality and another conservative moves a big step closer to having a heart attack over it. bp pays billions in fines for the gulf oil spill then gets billions more in government contracts. lindsey graham announce he will continue to block lady gaga's tour until she provides more answers about benefit -- benghazi. starting with the senate and majority leader harry reid. >> republicans have made an unfortunate choice to ratchet up the level of destruction here in washington. just when you thought things couldn't get worse it gets worse. >> john: because today senate republicans blocked former republican senator chuck hagel's nomination to become the nation's next secretary of defense. this is the first time, friends in our nation's history that a filibuster has been used to block a president's nominee for that position. the final tally 58 for 40 against and one senator utah's

orrin hatch voted present. wow, harry you couldn't see this coming, to cow? senator reid has mildly apoplectic after the votes were cast. >> they're filibustering him. that's what they're doing. i'm going to say i'm sorry sorry this has happened. >> john: harry reid showing the lack of outrage and passion he's renowned for. we should apologize for watching filibuster reform at the start of the session. after today's vote, president obama might also agree. >> obama: the filibuster historically has been used selectively for a handful of issues to extend debate. we don't have a 60 vote rule. that's become common practice. >> john: it ain't over until it's over. the senate will likely vote again on the nomination when it returns for a much-needed 10-day recess. if you're wondering why the unprecedented event took place some say they're blocking haigle to squeeze the white house for

more information on the benghazi attack, something hagel has nothing to do with. others are backing ted cruz's calls for additional information on hagel's speeches and business deals. but senator john mccain may have gotten it right when he explained the vote to fox news. >> there's a lot of ill will toward senator hagel because when he was a republican, he attacked president bush mercilessly at one point said he was the west president since herbert hoover. said that the surge was the worst blunder since the vietnam war which is nonsense. and was very anti- his own party and people. people don't forget that. >> john: because for some in the g.o.p., there's nothing more wrong than being right. republicans will continue to punish hagel for the crime of being right. connoisseurs of paranoia likely won't forget another new outburst from the nra's wayne won't pea air. today, he accused president

obama of launching "the most aggressive campaign in history to destroy second amendment rights." including -- >> bans on millions of commonly-owned rifles, shotguns and handguns. bans on tens of millions of standard magazines. bans on private transfers. even between family members. >> john: that came after lapierrre published an opinion piece on "the daily caller," the comedy site that doesn't realtize is a comedy site when he said gun owners need their weapons to protect their family from a total collapse of society. a collapse mr. lapierrre says he saw a response of in hurricane sandy. after hurricane sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. looters ran wild in south brooklyn. there was no food, water or electricity and if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you had better get back before dark or you might not get home at all.

that, my friends was wayne lapierrre beyond thunder dome. for more, i'm delighted to be joined by the former governor of new york and former current tv host everyone knows who you are. you're eliot spitzer. >> pleasure to be back here. >> john: it is a pleasure to have you back. >> wayne lapierrre is a complete lunatic. >> john: i think that's a bit insulting to partial lunatics. let's go to the partial filibuster. who do you think i'm dying to know this, is more to blame for what happened today. republicans in the senate or harry reid himself? >> blame is a word we use too often but since you raised it, harry reid had the opportunity on the first legislative day of the session to use what they call the nuclear option to reform the filibuster rule. he should have done it. instead, for the second time, they came out with this ridiculous noncompromise compromise and afterwards, they say oh look, they're still doing it. i don't quite understand why we

have to go through this charade. chuck hagel will get a vote when they come back because we need a secretary of defense and even the republicans acknowledge that. where this will come back to haunt us, judicial nominations you know, robert cordray, in other words, those positions where the republicans will simply sit tight and filibuster forever and they will turn the government into a set of ears that don't turn. this is why we changed the filibuster rule. >> john: when the senate takes this ten-day recess and clearly they need it -- >> they worked what? two days. had three dinner parties and now ten days off. >> john: you can imagine how much heat these senators will get from their constituents back at home. do you think they might come back with okay we made our point. >> no. you heard it with john mccain. this is about the inside the

beltway chamber -- where words ricochet back and forth. they listen to themselves. they're playing a game where harry reid against mitch mcconnell. the chess game continues unabated. harry reid could have broken the game over. >> john: mccain was candid saying we're punishing this guy for going against the bush administration. >> that's what they call gaffe in washington where you tell the truth and reveal what people are really thinking because what chuck hagel had done while bush was president was tell the truth. you can debate the surge and military issue aside but calling george bush the worst president since herbert hoover, 80% of the public at some point would have agreed with that. president obama's entitled to his secretary of defense. game over. >> john: it's incredibly historic. never happened before. what does this say about the likelihood of pushing any kind of legislation through the house or senate? >> if you go back to the state of the union where you had climate change, there's no way

climate change is going to happen legislative. the president said he will do it individually through executive power. gun control wayne lapierrre out there on the lunatic fringe, maybe we'll get background checks but that's not so clear. when it comes to minimum wage, many of us feel should have been raised more than $9 because it is still below where it was the republicans are pushing back against that. even if you take sort of the core ideas that the president laid out, it was a very nice speech and of course, the emotional energy being undone, you wonder if any of it can happen. >> john: even if they don't happen, are these wins for the president. if he fails on assault weapons and has a future massacre, you own this. problems on minimum wage, he looks good going into 2014, people will remember the president who fought for the working class? >> winning for him now is different. he's in a second termen where historical analysis and historical perspective is what he cares about. he's not fighting for re-election. he needs results after eight

years so he can say here's what we got done. i still think the fundamental metric will be middle class incomes after eight years of president obama be up or down. if its adown then i think the historical record will be yes he brought us back from the precipice but somehow did not restore the trend line. that was the focus of what he was talking about. whether the pieces are there whether it happens, we have to wait and see. >> john: i want to move on to mr. lapierrre. i know you're a fan. >> my buddy wayne. >> john: during the first few days after sandy, there was not a single homicide in the city of new york contrary to what mr. lapierrre lied and only seven alleged luting cases in all of brooklyn. what's he talking about and do his fans care? >> he's been watching too many movies, mad max australia back after 2,000 years. the guy simply is detached from reality. i think the -- >> john: does he need to be? isn't his job to sell fear?

>> i was completely wrong about three months ago. less than that. after the newtown massacre, and there have been a sequence of horrific events. i kept waiting for an alternative force to emerge within the nra. somebody to stand up. somebody akin to what's going on in the republican party now or even a karl rove saying hey guys, we can't win this way. there are gun owners who are sensible. i keep waiting for some of those to band together saying here's what we think we can do. >> john: you see 85% of nra members support background checks. >> there's no voice. they need somebody to be their recognizable face who can then -- >> take on the leadership. >> push lapierrre aside. he's the tea party. we are the mainstream. he's on the fringe. he's the tea party. we are the mainstream.

>> republican legislators responding to the 85% who agree with what we think is the most common sense view, we have to say look wayne lapierrre is holding the political cards. >> john: is he trying to go forward with his campaign of lies until it falls apart or is he just getting paid? >> it may be both. it may be until he wins. if this guy six months ago has stopped anything other than a weak universal background check if be they haven't limited the number of bullets in a magazine, if there isn't an assault weapons ban, he will have won. that's a sad reality. >> john: speaking of sad reality, let's move to the sequester. senate democrats have a plan that republicans say they won't support. republicans say they have a plan that democrats won't support. are we just looking at a new fiscal cliff disaster every month? >> look, the difference about the sequester is that it isn't quite as terrifying as the

fault. as a consequence saying how do we negotiate after the fact. some people are saying sequester is not so bad because we get some cuts in defense spending or on the other side, we get cuts in defense spending. people are looking at this saying you know what? maybe this is the best way to muddle through. there is not the hysteria out there in the public at large. there is not a drumbeat in the press that we're getting close to a default. there is no sort of emerging consensus that we have to do something. so i think we're going to have a sequester. >> john: is some of that related to a national financial crisis fatigue? people don't want to hear about it right now? >> i think people are more distant from what's going on in washington. they're erecting a wall saying guys, we've had enough scream and shouting. we had an election. we watched the state of the union. leave us alone. march madness is going to start soon. nascar season starts this weekend. give us something to cheer about. go away and play a different

game. >> john: that's not going to happen. on another front -- >> nascar is going to happen. >> john: the president announced a new task force. he's gotten very good at that. this one would investigate and prosecute financial fraud behind the housing crisis. as you well know, governor, there has not been a single prosecution yet. are we ever going to see bankers or any other financial pros indicted? >> no, i think unfortunately the moment has passed. even though we have a new s.e.c. chair, mary jo white, i don't think she will be able to make the cases five years later. evidence is getting stale. waivers have been signed that create a difficult legal landscape in which to bring cases. you know, the task force you talked about did virtually nothing. eric schneiderman, full disclosure. friend of mine, the current a. g. in new york. there is some element of frustration that washington has not but the re-- put the resources or energy that needed to be there. the public at large should be

outraged disgusted. justice department failed. they simply -- whether it is walmart, news corp. bankers they focused instead on baseball players taking steroids. this made no sense. and they simply failed to make the case. >> john: i would like to ask why you think the white house didn't get behind prosecution but that's a whole other interview. i hope you'll come back. s&p, do you have any opinion on the lawsuit the government has filed? >> it was a good case. it was a good case five years later than it should have been. it was the sort of case that could have been brought should have been brought against other organizations where you dig into the e-mails. this is what we were doing 12 years ago. read what people thought. what they thought was not what they said in public. they were selling stuff they knew was not good. just charge them with it. civil, criminal, doesn't matter. the s&p case was good. but it's only one. >> john: is it funding back? up and comer eliot spitzer

former governor of new york and current tv host, a pleasure to have you here. >> my pleasure. >> john: so is e-mail killing the post office? well only if it is an e-mail from david. that's coming up next.

which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. and with some planning and effort hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. >> john: tonight's thing of the day is the valentine of the day. this valentine comes from the illinois state senate which just passed a marriage equality bill. the land of lincoln could become

the tenth state in the union to recognize same-sex marriage. it is now up to the illinois house. they need 60 votes to pass it and governor pat quinn already said he will sign it into law. it is a biggest thing since mike ditka's mustache. >> it was announced that the post office would be eliminating saturday delivery, a simple straightforward narrative emerged in the cooperate media. because of technology, there is less of a need for standard e-mail. therefore the postal service's finances are a mess therefore it was necessary to cut to address the issue. the only problem with the story about this poor post office besieged by e-mail, it is completely wrong. the u.s. postal service is not the victim of e-mail and text messages. it is the victim of alec and the koch brothers. why, you ask? quite simple, really. the usps is the number one employer of unionized labor in the united states and provides an affordable universal service

that a private company could and would charge us all much, much more for. two huge no-nos for the right wing. the reason the right wing crafted the legislation to destroy the postal service. we're joined now by nationally and internationally syndicated radio host the brilliant thom hartmann who wrote an incredible piece about this very subject for truth out.org called the usps media hashtag fail. >> great to be with you. >> john: please complain what the postal accountability enhancement act is and what its effects have been. >> well, you know, there were some reasonable and some good changes in that act which is -- as far as i can tell, how it got out of the house government oversight committee henry waxman and other democrats basically signing of on it. it was passed by a voice vote. we don't know exactly who ultimately voted for it. this -- the core of it, that is biting the post office in the

butt right now was this effort to take down the second largest employer in the united states. in 2006, the post office was doing just fine, thank you very much. in fact, the post office was profitable. in fact, the post office in 2005 had been talking about since they had the largest private vehicle fleet in the united states and most of those trucks traveled less than 100 miles in a day which is easy range of an electric vehicle, they were talking about electrifying, replacing gas engines with electric engines as much as half of all of their vehicles. they were really looking at some progressive stuff. the koch brothers were going nuts. plus, as the second largest employer in the united states behind walmart which is not unionized. ever since 1981 when ronald reagan declared war on union workers, the republican war against unions has been relentless. this was a two-fer. what this bill says was we've got to make sure that postal

employees, health benefits, when they're retired are covered. that sounds reasonable. in fact, that's how it was sold to everybody. let's make sure the pension fund, the health benefits are covered. but we're going to cover the health retirement benefits of people 75 years from now. people who had not yet been born. we'll cover the retirement benefits right now in a 10-year period which means $5 billion a year starting in 2006 and ending in 2016, $5 billion a year has to be sucked out of the post office and put into this trust fund which already has mind-boggling amount of money in it. and none of this is -- this kneecapped the post office. >> john: i find that's the detail that has been missed by most people i know that for 75 years into the future, the benefits had to be paid for now. it is easy to see why the right wing would want to destroy the u.s. post office. as you mentioned the unionized labor and of course, the fact that they wanted to have an electrical fleet of vehicles.

mistake. that made a lot of progressives and sane people happy. we can see why the oil barons wouldn't want it. who stands to profit by starving the post office the most? >> well, it is hard to say. certainly the republican party profits whenever unions are destroyed. and so they're big on this. the oil barons profit when the largest fleet of vehicles from the united states is about to get electrified and instead it stays using fossil fuels. fedex and u.p.s. obviously profit. and the word is that they were lobbying for these. there are some tracks back to that. although both of those services ironically use the postal service for what's called last-mile service, if you send a package by fedex or u.p.s. to some remote location in a town in the middle of nowhere particularly in far away nowhere like alaska, they will actually hand it off to the post office for final delivery.

so fedex and u.p.s. is subsidized by the post office. >> john: we're paying for it. why do you think so many democrats went along with this act? out how it sail through congress so easily? teddy kennedy voted for this. >> i genuinely don't know. what was in ted kennedy's mind, the idea of prefunding postal retirement, you know, if people didn't realize that there was a 75-year punch line in there, it probably made a lot of sense. let's make sure the postal -- and like i said, there were some good reforms in the law. in the house, it was passed on a voice vote. we don't even know who voted for it. >> john: oh, wow. >> odds are it got out of the government's oversight committee as a deal. let's make this happen. it's like this little time bomb. this little poison pill had been slipped into it.

that 75 year thing. >> john: why do you think the media got this story so wrong? why are we still hearing e-mail is killing the post office? are they being lacey in their reporting? >> i think that's probably the fact largest factor. but i think it is also important to note that in 1980, paul wyrick made a famous speech. probably have shown the video of it here, down in dallas, texas where paul wyrick, one of the cofounders of alec, he made this speech. he was helping run the reagan campaign at the time. he said i don't want people to vote. in fact, our leverage quite candidly goes down -- up as the voting populous goes down. that whole group was you know, behind taking the post office down. >> john: proving my theory it is aristocracy versus democracy. >> yeah and there hasn't been much coverage -- for alec, alec

slipped under the radar for 20 years. >> john: i thank you thom, for the piece. host of the thom hartmann program. thanks for coming back on "viewpoint." >> thank you john. >> john: how crazy is wayne lapierrre? he's so crazy he took a test and said the inkblots could have been prevented with more guns. [ male announcer ] tell him he's about to find out. you're about to find out. [ male announcer ] test it. highlight the european chassis 6 speed manual, dual exhaust wide stance, clean lines have him floor it, spin it punch it, drift it put it through its paces is he happy? oh ya, he's happy! [ male announcer ] and that's how you test your car for fun. easy.

>> john: wayne lapierrre america's comedy treasure just wrote a piece for "the daily caller" that was so off-the-charts cuckoo for cocoa puffs that the only way we can respond is with a jokeoff. joining me now is tv's frank frank conniff. hi frank, in your opinion frank, just how crazy is wayne lapierrre? >> he's so crazy his meds are off him. >> john: wayne lapierrre is so crazy, he had an interventions from glenn beck and andy dick. >> he's so crazy the world health organization advises anyone coming in contact with him to get a rabies shot.

>> john: wayne lapierrre is so crazy now jenny mccarthy wants to inoculate her kids. >> his pants are treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. joan wayne lapierrre is so crazy, doctors are borders built a moat to keep him away. >> if you look his name up in the dictionary, he'll shoot you. >> pizza hut just renamed crazy wayne lapierrre bread. >> he actually likes the tv show smash. >> john: wayne lapierrre has the full support of a majority of republican lawmakers who believe freedom allows deranged people designed to kill lots of people in a short amount of time with no background checks. thank you for giving us some dignified commentary.

>> john: if you thought maybe operations at bp wouldn't have faired so well after the 2010 blowout on its well in the gulf gulf of mexico that killed 11 people and caused the largest environmental disaster in u.s. history, consider this my friends, bp's contracts with the u.s. pentagon doubled since the year it spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico. according to reporting by bloomberg, the company's awards surged to 2.51 billion in the year ended september 30th from $1.04 billion in fiscal 2010. bp's share of the military's petroleum market jumped to 12% from 8.5% during the period. but to be fair, the e.p.a. did

finally announce it would temporarily ban the company from winning new government work just this past november, more than two years after the spill. joining me now to assess what this means for bp and for logic itself is 30-year oil industry veteran bob cavnar author of "disaster on the horizon." mr. cavnar, so pleased to you have with us tonight. >> great to be with you. >> john: thank you. what are these contracts actually for sir? can't the defense department just shop somewhere else for fuel? >> well, john, the way that the military -- the entire u.s. government acquires supplies like fuel is through bidding and contracts, large contracts depending geographically where they need the fuel. they'll contract typically with approved companies. that are authorized to do business with the government in different geographic'ses so that's the way they buy all of their fuel for their ships their planes, trucks, tanks

that sort of thing. bp, before the blowout, was one of those large suppliers along with exxon mobil and shell and chevron and the other large producers. the thing that's interesting in this particular case is that bp's share has increased since the blowout. and i believe that the government has done that before the e.p.a. shuts it down or temporarily shut them down, to keep bp viable in the u.s. so they could continue to pay the fines that are certainly going to come from the spill itself. >> john: that is a fashion nateing hypothesis. i want to ask you about it. what kind of message does it send to bp when the pentagon awards the company $2.5 billion the same year it spills a record amount of oil in the gulf. were they that hard up for cash to begin with? >> part of the challenge here, during the blowout at least for the government was to keep bp viable so they could pay the costs.

at least bp viable in the united states. if you recall, there was a lot of talk during the early days of the blowout about how serious it was and whether bp could either stay afloat in america or stay active in the u.s. or even internationally. globally. and so i believe that the $20 billion agreement between the obama administration and bp was to kind of put a fence around the amount of liability that bp would be liable for but also the government knew -- for them to pay that $20 billion they needed to remain viable. so at that particular time, when they came to the $20 billion agreement, you'll remember the obama administration then suddenly stopped criticizing bp publicly. >> john: sure do. >> that's when all of the contracts began to happen, increasing the amount of oil revenue that bp had. >> john: pardon me if i'm

taking time to absorb this. the government is giving more money to bp not for jobs and not to appear like they're pro oil drilling but just so bp can pay the money back to the government for their fines? >> that's what i personally believe. there is obviously no public evidence of that. but just the behavior of the administration before the fine -- before the $20 billion settlement was made and then after. and knowing that bp needed to stay viable to not only pay the $20 billion for the claims but also to pay the environmental fines that has still yet to be assessed by the government. the thing -- the real issue here though to me is the message to bp is the criminal charges were corporate. they've got a few level -- a few managers who have also been charged. but that liability didn't go all the way to the top. at least personally. so no executive at bp has ever been charged with any wrongdoing at all so the message is very

mixed to the public and i think to the oil industry, also. >> john: has bp ever had a moment of stress for what it's done to this country and the gulf? >> i think they had more stress over their stock price frankly than they thought about the gulf itself. as you recall, tony hayward said during the height of the blowout, it is a big ocean. what's this one little well going to do to this big ocean ignoring the fact that hundreds of miles of coastline and thousands of square miles of deep water column had been polluted by the oil. >> john: bob cavnar, ceo of luca technologies, i'm terrified to think that american taxpayer dollars might be paying for the commercials we see all night about how bp made the gulf such a swell place. thank you very much for your time and expertise this evening. >> good to be with you. >> john: many thanks. most people want to raise the minimum wage making republicans the minority party again.

my panel talks about that coming up next. that take you inside the headlines. documentaries... on current tv. don't let it get to you. ♪ ♪ try mach3 sensitive, with three high-definition blades. a closer shave in a single stroke for less irritation, even on sensitive skin. ♪ ♪ get closer to the one you love. ♪ ♪ gillette mach3 sensitive. gillette. the best a man can get.

>> john: just saw my eighth grader's valentine's essay. a hallmark holiday for a company to make money makes one feel bad because they have no one to love. susan, your son is right. not only is valentine's day a racket for the greeting card, floorel and lingerie cartels it is the perfect time to make the kid in school who is an outcast feel worse about it. your boy is only 13 but you appears to have raised the next kafka. tweet us at "viewpoint" or john fuglesang or use the hashtag

"viewpoint" or say hello on our facebook page. one of the few concrete specific proposals president obama raised in tuesday's state of the union was a call to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour from the current rate of $7.25. and republicans did what they do best, hated the idea. leading the way for the hateful haters, house speaker john boehner who told reporters yesterday "when you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? you get less of it. what happens when you take away the first couple of rungs on the economic ladder, you make it harder for people to get on the ladder." this is an argument economists technically called bull pucky. according to the center for economic and policy research, raising the minimum wage has little or no impact at all on the rate of unemployment. but that doesn't stop robert luddy, ceo of a company you've never heard of from furthering this argument on fox news yesterday. >> at the bottom are teenagers. what it's going to do is just

take out all of those jobs. i worked for 85 cents an hour when i was in high school. i was happy to have that job. >> john: let's unpack that, shall we? first of all, when mr. luddy was in high school back in the early 1960s, the minimum wage was between $1 and $1.25 which with in today's money would be $6 or $7 an hour. sounds pretty sweet. second of all bob guys at the bottom aren't teenagers. in fact, do remember this for arguments with your right wing friends, according to the bureau of labor statistics, as of 2011, only about 24% of americans earning minimum wage were teenagers. but perhaps steven colbert best gets to the heart of mr. luddy's real reason for posing the minimum wage. >> it is those cold nights fighting off rats with a spatula that motivates people to lift themselves up. like mr. luddy who lobbies to eliminate the minimum wage because [ bleep ] had to fight off rats with a spatula. joining me now to discuss this and many other issues are three

of the hosts of this weekend's blackness radio. i'm so glad you all are back this week. l. joy williams, elon james white, the managing director of this week of blackness and aaron rand freeman. really a pleasure to have you back. >> thank you. >> john: let's get started on this. with john boehner's rungs on a ladder argument. you don't need to see statistics to see this is completely senseless and classist. no one is talking about removing rungs from anyone's ladder. we're simply talking about making the bottom rung get paid more. now, isn't this pro capitalism? is this pro growth? isn't this pro america? isn't john boehner about protecting corporations at the expense of working americans? >> i feel like you don't know what america is if you say that because america is built on people not having and then we feel better because we do. that's how -- i'm sorry have you not looked at history? >> not only that. we built the country on free

labor and now we gotta pay people. so i don't want to pay as many people. we can go back to paying people less as much as possible. >> john: we would have outsourced slavery to other parts of the country. but you're exactly -- other parts of the world i should say. to me, the number one bogus frank luntz term, pro growth. doesn't it seem if people are making more money at the bottom of the pay scale they'll be spending more? they'll be paying more in sales taxes, buying more and your business will have more customers. >> not only that. the proposal will help reduce poverty by 3%. that's not a huge amount but it helps. for people that are there. and this argument that they're trying -- they keep opposing the rate and minimum wage all the time. george bush raised the minimum wage too in his second term. >> john: how dare you bring that up, l. joy. >> i think what they're more upset about is tying the minimum wage to inflation. you know. so that it will continue what we

don't have to have this fight continually every couple of years to raise the minimum wage so it fits the cost of everything else is going up. and wages stay down. >> so many facts! >> john: one more, please, may i? according to the bureau of labor statistics 49% of minimum wage earners are women over the age of 20. almost half. we're talking about waitresses and people in the service industry. is this just another area the g.o.p. has found to marginalize women? >> i believe they look for different ways to marginalize women. >> right. i don't think this particular thing here is like hey, let's keep the women down. it is about the fact that they just don't care about the people on the bottom and as a recently poor person, i take offense to this because -- [ laughter ] because the fact is like the idea $9 minimum wage, i worked for way less than minimum wage before. so i don't don't understand why they would fight so hard. as the president said in the state of the union people working full time and yet still

in poverty. >> john: aaron the idea of linking the minimum wage increases to inflation which elon mentioned is the same thing we heard from romney. are republicans going to be against anything this president does even if it hurts the economy. where in fact if they helped him make the economy better, they could brag about it. >> i'm not clear how we can get this type of logical arguments across to people who can argue that you can live and save money and get a house and establish generational wealth with $14,000 a year. all you have to do is be responsible. you have to be responsible with your money. your $14,000 your $7.50, you can be everything everyone else. you can do it. i don't know how. >> john: it seems like they want no one to vote for them anymore. while the g.o.p. is having trouble changing their image fox news seems to be doing a better job. the same time they got rid of the more extreme commentators like sarah palin and they brought in scott brown and dennis kucinich and re-signed

karl rove who is now the enemy of the extreme right so it is good for comedy. >> could they take a page out of fox news' book? in terms of rebanding themselves for the masses? >> no. >> i'm calling shenanigans on this whole rebranding. once you re-sign karl rove, you failed at the rebranding. >> john: we had a tea partier who said they're trying to blacklist people from going on the air. >> also, they don't want to look as insane as they have been looking for the past couple of years. when they had the tea party and the tea party looked like that was the hotness yeah, let's go for it. it look like it is falling out of fashion. >> john: why isn't the party taking a page out of fox news's book? they had the crazy guy right after him. what's up? what is up with the two rebuttals? >> i think elon has announced on

our show that he is going to be doing -- >> next year. apparently anybody can do it. >> anybody can. >> apparently we have at least as good if not better production quality. >> john: let me have siri remind me. scott brown said he thinks he can make more of a difference being on fox. krugman said last month he said he could write a column for the times than as a cabinet member. are we in quite a sad state of affairs when the media can do more than elected officials? >> i think so. because in particular, if you're looking at the particular demographics that fox news and the numbers that they have in terms of what people watch where they get their news from and things of that nature, people feel they can talk directly to an american or talk directly to thousands millions of people by being on air versus being in congress to help influence the conversation.

we all know fox helps influence the conversation at least in some people's minds. >> look at the daily show. look at -- the fact is media has a dangerous effect on the politics which is why it is so bad when they decide to report crazy, insane things is because it is going to affect things in a big way. >> john: they can't gerrymander districts. there are things the media can't do to get votes. >> the thing is you -- >> yeah. i definitely think that there is a way -- you know, this they can influence the debate for gerrymandering districts. >> if you are outside and you have that space within the media that you have the audience, you can totally say listen, that's why we need this to happen. that's a completely different argument than if you're trying to get votes for a bill or something like that. >> look at the examples during the obama care or the america vote act both of those. the media was able to help

influence the directive of average americans and they showed up at rallies and town hall meetings. >> john: that's why i'm here and not running for congress. my panel stays with me after the break. we help harry reid take on his biggest enemy, harry reid. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's what you're saying. (vo) she's joy behar. >>current will let me say anything.

>> john: welcome back to "viewpoint." one last quick question for the panel. with all of the dishonesty and unethical behavior in congress, can you name one person in d.c. you actually trust? >> michelle obama and her side. >> john: elon? >> no. listen, i know people -- i know

politicians are politicians so i treat them as such. >> john: aaron? >> conservative -- moderate republicans for staying so quiet and maintaining -- keeping their jobs during the tough tough times. >> john: aaron wins the night. today, my friends the senate republicans made history when they used the filibuster to block a vote on president obama's nominee for secretary of defense, another republican. and the whole thing stinks like a carnival cruise ship. house majority leader harry reid was so angry he almost tore the tassels off his loafers. reid called it the saddest spectacle. i think i can recall a sadder one that happened last month because if harry reid is mad at the g.o.p. for filibustering this nomination, he needs to go straight to the senate floor in full view of the cameras and spend an interday punching himself in the face. now, it is not easy to fight yourself in the face. just ask edward norton in fight club. you see senator reid, the first

rule you harry are president of fight yourself in the face club because you had the chance to make sure this wouldn't happen. in fact, you promised us, you made sure this wouldn't happen. and now throbbing. poor leon panetta has to stay in the pentagon even longer like george bailey never getting out of bed. now because of you mr. reid, the chicken hawks have come home to roost. harry reid spent much of last year getting pressure to reform the rule but he blew the chance. then he apologized for blowing the chance. he said you on udall and mercury were right and he was wrong. he promised us come the beginning of the almighty 2013 session, he would make filibuster reform happen. on the first day harry had a chance to change the filibuster rules with a simple majority and harry reid stepped to the plate and filibustered on filibuster. he choked like george w. bush on pretzel nights on filibusters. he folded. s the